"Meg?" She halted, apparently willing to listen.
We were just posturing. This was the growling stage. She wouldn't start a fight without backup. I began to relax. The old fears started to fade. She was all bluster. More than that, though, she was just wrong.
"Have you ever been pregnant?" I asked it on an impulse, out of curiosity. I just wanted to know.
She almost chuckled. "Werewolves don't get pregnant. We can't get pregnant." She said this with an air of triumph, as if I had just demonstrated my lack of knowledge, and she was happy to rub my face in it.
I smiled sadly. I remembered Dr. Shumacher's words, that most women lycanthropes simply might never realize if they got pregnant. Maybe Meg just didn't know.
"You're wrong. We can get pregnant. The pregnancy doesn't survive shape-shifting. You might never even know it."
She gaped at me, astonished, like I'd slapped her. How many woozy, crampy mornings was she looking back on? How many times had she just written it off to an odd cycle? I didn't want to know.
"Meg, you're ignorant, you're a blockhead, and me waltzing in here and taking over has got nothing to do with me being famous and everything to do with you being completely useless. You and Carl both." I managed to say that whole thing without raising my voice.
Snarling, she resumed her retreat.
Only after we heard her car door slam, the engine start, and the tires peel out of the parking lot, did Ben blow out a breath and lower his gun. I sat down right there on the sidewalk because my legs had turned to goo. Sheer willpower had been keeping me on my feet, but blood loss and nerves finally got the better of me.
Ben knelt and put his hand on my shoulder. "You okay?"
I leaned into him. "That thing I said, about picking up the pieces and that's why we're together—that's not just it. I mean, there's more than that, right?"
"We should have this conversation later," he said, glancing at my sister, who was standing over us, looking down with bugged-out eyes.
"What was that all about?" Cheryl said, even more hysterically, though it didn't seem possible.
"I said it was a long story," I sighed as Ben hauled me to my feet.
"No, not the mess. Not just the mess. I mean about the pregnant part."
I figured Mom had told her, but apparently not. I couldn't even look at her. Ben pulled me close and put a kiss on my hair, over my ear.
"Are you pregnant?" she said.
I smiled thinly. "Not anymore."
"Oh, geez. I'm sorry." She said it to both of us, and she looked sad.
I took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, and our argument disappeared. "Cheryl, there's kind of a war going on. I need you to go home, stay inside. Keep everyone inside. Don't let anyone in unless you know them really well. If you see anyone outside the house, if you see anything odd—if anything even feels odd—call 911 and tell them you have an intruder in the house. Don't even hesitate."
"What—"
I held up my hand to stop her. She was going to ask, again, what was going on. "That woman and some other people would happily kill me if they got the chance. We're not going to let that happen."
"Kitty—"
"Where's Dad? Is he at the house?"
"No, he's staying with us while Mom's in the hospital."
"Good. It's going to be okay. I'll call you later. I'll see Mom as soon as I can."
"Okay," she said, and sounded young. Then she hugged me, bloodstains and all. "Be careful."
"You, too."
We watched her return to her car and drive away. Ben kept hold of the gun the whole time, in case something else lurked in the shadows. Without a word, we made it inside. I made it into the shower. My upper chest had a puckered spot of skin where the bullet hole had been. That was it. I kept picking at it; it was healing, almost smoothing out under my touch.
I didn't want to leave the stream of water. I didn't want to go back to the war. But I did.
I asked Ben, who was making food, "Any word?"
"Nope."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Evening came, and we didn't get any calls. No one had spotted Carl after the KNOB attack. Hardin said she'd put a stakeout at his and Meg's house, but the place seemed to be empty. That meant Carl and Meg had run for the hills. They could be anywhere now. Arturo and Rick would be waking soon. Arturo would do something—he wouldn't sit back while Rick challenged him. The trouble was, I couldn't guess what he'd do, where he'd send his people, who he'd attack first. I had to wait for a call.
I was becoming a control freak. It was part of leading a pack.
Ben made chicken and pasta for supper. He was a decent cook—yet another reason to keep him around. But I couldn't eat. I stood by the door to the balcony, staring out. From the table, where two sets of plates and utensils were set out with a ceramic bowl of food in the middle, he pestered. "You need to eat."
"I can't."
"You should."
Pouting, I sounded like a spoiled child. "I just can't."
He dropped his fork on his plate, making a ringing noise. The silence after was rigid with tension. After a long moment he said, "I wish I could fix everything. I wish I could make it all go away. But I can't. So I thought, I'll make dinner. Maybe that'll help. But I guess not."
He wore a white T-shirt, jeans. His light brown hair was a bit too long, rumpled from him running his hands through it. His face was lined, tired. Full of character. He looked like a freaking rock star. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I wanted to cling to him like a leech.
"Thank you," I said, on impulse. "Thanks for standing by me."
The smile grew wider, and he bowed his head. "Well, you know. We're—"
I held up a hand to stop him. "Don't…say it. Just don't."
"I don't know what else to say." Roughly, he stood from the table. Grabbed the bowl of pasta and shoved it into the fridge. The whole appliance rattled. I was relieved, though; for a moment I thought he was going to throw it.
"You don't have to say anything."
But he kept going, coming out to the living room. "Maybe you're right, maybe you've been right all along, that if we weren't both werewolves we wouldn't be together. That we'd have no reason to be together."
"I never—"
He waved me off with a frustrated brush of his arm. "No, I know you've never said it. But you've been thinking it right from the start. And I wanted you to be wrong. I wanted to prove you wrong. But hey—you're never wrong."
"Ben!"
But he was already marching back to the bedroom, where he slammed the door behind him. I curled up on the sofa and covered my face with my hands. What happened if I won this war, yet lost everything I was trying to save?
When my cell phone, sitting on the coffee table, rang, my brain rattled. All my nerves twitched. It was like I forgot what to do with it, then I rushed to answer.
"Good morning," said Rick.
And so it starts. "Hi."
"What's been happening? Anything from Carl?"
"He went after KNOB," I said.
"And?"
This was actually almost working. I ought to be pleased. "Hardin has four of his wolves in custody. Carl got away. Hardin has people looking but they haven't found him." I'm not sure I wanted them to. I wasn't sure they could handle a cornered wolf.
"And you're all right? Your people are all right?"
I hesitated, then decided there'd be time for the long version later. "I'm fine. We're all fine. Anything happening on your end?"
"Yes. Charlie and Violet saw Arturo leave Obsidian. I want to move in while he's gone," he said, and his voice was too calm. Vampiric, I realized. The city could be crumbling around him and his tone wouldn't change.